Ocean had ear­lier sug­gested on his web­site that the new al­bum would be called Boys Don’t Cry, but that turned out to be the ti­tle of an art mag­a­zine that in­cludes a CD of the new al­bum.

The 17-song al­bum, which car­ries a “Parental Ad­vi­sory – Ex­plicit Con­tent” warn­ing la­bel, was also avail­able at pop-up stores in New York, Los An­ge­les, Chicago and Lon­don.

In Man­hat­tan fans lined up for more than a block at Mul­berry Iconic Mag­a­zines – a con­ve­nience store that sells beer and sand­wiches as well as mag­a­zines – for a chance to get hold of the al­bum, The New York Times re­ported.

“I had the time of my life mak­ing all of this. Thank you all,” Ocean wrote on his Tum­blr so­cial me­dia ac­count.

“Es­pe­cially those of you who never let me for­get I had to fin­ish. Which is ba­si­cally every one of y’all.” The name of the al­bum is spelled Blond on the cover, but Blonde on Ap­ple. The un­pre­dictable Ocean re­leased on Au­gust 11 a 45-minute “visual al­bum” through Ap­ple Mu­sic ti­tled End­less that fea­tured un­re­leased tracks along with black and white footage of the singer en­gaged in a con­struc­tion project.

Much of Ocean’s first al­bum Chan­nel Or­ange re­volved around feel­ings of first and un­re­quited love.

Ocean later re­vealed that his first love was a man, a rare open­ness in the of­ten ma­cho world of hip-hop that led stars in­clud­ing Jay Z to ap­plaud him for com­ing out.